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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181681">7 people Ava May meets on the road to Ashton</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/pseuds/cadmean'>cadmean</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>summer in ash-town [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Horror, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Road Trips</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:02:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,176</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/pseuds/cadmean</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new life waiting for the both of them in Ashton.</p><p>Ava May and her daughter Charlotte just have to actually get there, first.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>summer in ash-town [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fic In A Box</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>7 people Ava May meets on the road to Ashton</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts">DesertVixen</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Past a certain point, Ava May has long believed, long car rides become their own sort of liminal space. The whole world narrows down to the inside of the vehicle you’re in, while all that was outside just became blurred shapes of indistinguishable colors, passing by at a speed either too fast or too slow to do much of anything with.</p><p>She always enjoyed those long trips, though, sitting in the back seat together with her sister while their parents did their best to navigate a map full of coffee stains and a rapidly-diminishing supply of snacks. Ava May honestly doesn’t quite remember where all their road trips had taken the family, over the years; beaches and cities and far-off relatives all blurring together like the trees on the side of the road in the rain. But even now she still remembers the feeling of the car seat at her back, and the way the door vibrated under her arm when she rested it there – and most of all she remembers her sister, of course, and the way the sun used to always shine through the windows on her side of the car and never Ava May’s, and how somehow her sister always seemed to be sitting closer to the crate of food, and how her laughter had resounded through the car whenever they drove over a particularly sharp bump in the road—</p><p>It’s with all these long-gone muddled thoughts of her sister, now, that she opens the passenger door of the rented truck and hoists her daughter inside. Little Charlotte is still drowsy with sleep, holding on to a banana that Ava May’s not quite sure she’s even recognized as food yet this early in the day, and thankfully she offers not a word of complaint as Ava May straps her into the seat. She closes the passenger door softly but quickly, then, banishing the afterimage of her sister once falling asleep in the car just like her daughter is now, Ava May loops around the back end of the truck. The doors there are already locked and have been since evening, but she checks nevertheless – and, no, as expected nobody had broken into the moving truck and the doors hadn’t magically come undone on their own, either. Ava May still breathes a sigh of relief regardless, and rattles the handles once more for good measure.</p><p>And then, just as dawn begins to crest over the far-off horizon and casts the utterly empty street in the first shades of deep reds and golds, Ava May can’t put it off any longer: she walks over to the driver’s side of the truck, pulls open the door, and gets behind the wheel of the truck.</p><p>Charlotte is already asleep again in the passenger seat, she sees; all that remains of their belongings is safely stowed away in the back of the truck; there’s a basket of sandwiches she’d prepared in the dead of night tucked into the space below Charlotte’s feet—</p><p>As Charlotte’s chest rises softly in her sleep, Ava May too takes the first breath of air of her new life and ignites the engine.</p><p> </p>
<h3>
  <strong>1 – The Truck Driver</strong>
</h3><p>They’ve been on the road for all of four hours when the engine of the rented moving truck lets out a noise like a wounded animal and starts spewing out a thin plume of smoke. For a good long minute Ava May continues on as if that’s nothing out of the unusual, just so that Charlotte in the seat next to her won’t immediately panic – but then, when the plume grows thicker and heavier and the engine’s whine becomes a full-on screech, Ava has no choice but to pull the truck over at the nearest brush-free part of the roadside curb and start hoping that it’s all looking worse than it actually is.</p><p>“Are we there already, mom?” Charlotte asks, soft and innocent. She’d woken up about half an hour ago, just as they’d passed by a field full of those long-haired cows that Ava May had always thought looked like baby bison. She’d slowed down the truck when she’d realized that Charlotte was watching the cows pass by through bleary, sleep-filled eyes; then had pulled it to a stop entirely, and they’d had their first round of sandwiches on a little spot of grass next to the road, overlooking a beautiful field of wheat.</p><p>Now, with both of them sharp and bright and well-fed, Ava has to fight every instinct to tear her eyes away from the still-growing plume of smoke and instead turn to face her daughter. As always, of course, she manages: she gives her a warm if somewhat strained smile, and reaches out to gently lay a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “Not yet. We’re making a brief stop here because the car’s not running quite as well as it should, and I’m going to take a look now to see if I can’t fix it. You stay inside, alright?”</p><p>Charlotte nods at her, and though she clutches the comic book in her hands so tightly that it flips a page, her eyes stay trained on the plume of smoke emanating from the engine block.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ten minutes into poking at the engine with the wrench she’s liberated from the boxes in the back of the moving truck, and Ava May is forced to come to the conclusion that she should have paid a lot more attention to all the times her mother and uncle had tried to explain to her how it all worked.</p><p>She lets out a muttered curse – low, just under her breath, because Charlotte has selectively amazing hearing when it comes to these things – and kicks the closest wheel, just for good measure. It hurts her foot more than anything, but the pain is its own sort of focal point, and clears her head well enough. Just in time, too, as she can hear the rumble of a truck approaching down the empty highway; Ava May deliberates only for a moment before sticking out an arm and flagging it down.</p><p>To her simultaneous relief and consternation the truck pulls over as soon as it's close enough to see her; the driver, when he exits the cabin of his giant box truck, gives her a friendly wave as he approaches. Ava May returns it hesitantly, but can’t help a slight smile as she sees just how concerned the driver looks at her and her own truck.</p><p>“Engine problems?” he asks once he’s standing beside Ava. When she nods, he adds, “You already called highway services, ma’am?”</p><p>She has to deny that. “My phone . . .”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, there’s real bad reception out here, forgot about that. I’ve got my radio, so I don’t have to make much use of regular mobiles when I’m on the job,” and he laughs so self-deprecatingly that Ava May doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she even if the reception were perfect she couldn’t have called anyone. Her phone’s still lying in the ruins of their old apartment, probably, smashed and burnt and in no working condition at all. “Well. Let me take a look then, shall we?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Where are you headed?” the truck driver asks as he clunks away at the engine, unscrewing a cap here and there, and because he has a kind face Ava May shrugs off her initial apprehension and says, “My daughter and I are headed to Ashton. I’ve bought a house there, for the both of us.”</p><p>“That explains the moving truck, then,” the truck driver laughs, “Never heard of Ashton, though. Far off, is it?”</p><p>“Not at all,” Ava May replies, and goes on to give him a rough explanation of where their destination lies. By the time she’s finished, he’s in turn finished with the engine, and they forget about the topic of Ashton entirely – “So the problem was the oil?”</p><p>“Sure looks like it. Must’ve been real low already when you rented the truck, and there’s real little left of it now. I’ve got a spare flask of it in my truck – you can have it, if you’d like. Much better than waiting for some repair truck to show up, believe you me. They take their time out here.” And he must’ve noticed Ava May’s weary expression, because he quickly adds, “As a gift, mind. Consider it my housewarming gift for you moving out to Ashton, alright?”</p><p>And before Ava May can protest he’s already lumbered back over to the cabin of his truck and, half-inside, starts rummaging through the veritable chaos Ava May can glimpse inside.</p><p>“I—Thank you,” she calls over to him. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you, here.”</p><p>The truck driver waves her off, upper body still somewhere in the vicinity of the driver’s seat. “Think nothing of it! Like I said – us truck drivers, we gotta help each other, and until you get to Ashton, I’ll consider you to be an honorary truck driver with that moving truck of yours.”</p><p> </p>
<h3>
  <strong>2 &amp; 3 – The Twins at the Gas Station </strong>
</h3><p>Charlotte can’t stop talking for another good hour about how cool the truck driver was, and how much she’s enjoying being an honorary truck driver, and mom, what if she got a truck of her own when she was grown up? Could she go on highway journeys just like the truck driver had? She’d help lots of people while on her journeys, of course—</p><p>There’s a gas station coming up, thank god, and they’re in dire need of gas anyway.</p><p>“All honorary truckers need sustenance! And our truck does, too, so let mommy pull over and we’ll go see what’s on offer at the station,” Ava May tells her daughter, which, predictably, sets her off on another whooping cheer that continues until Ava turns off the engine and unlocks the doors.</p><p>She fills the tank back up to full while having Charlotte wait inside the truck – it’s safer that way, of course, but it also gives Ava some much-needed seconds of quiet. There’s only the gurgling splash of fuel hitting the tank, and the humming of the pumps, and the electric buzz of the lighting that must’ve come from sometime just after the Great Depression, if the thick layer of dust is anything to go by.</p><p>There’s another car pulled up to the other fueling station, but as far as Ava May can see there’s nobody inside; it’s a flashy car, all sleek angles and low seats, and Ava May doesn’t pay it any more attention once she’s seen and memorized the license plate. It comes naturally to her, at this point; her parents had drilled it into her to the point where she was beginning to memorize the license plates of the cars from her dreams, and some habits stay, even almost fifteen years later. (There’s something strangely familiar about the car, however, and perhaps that’s the reason why Ava May takes another quick glance around – not that she sees anyone else around, though, no matter what she may have expected, deep down.)</p><p>The tank’s full at this point, and so Ava May returns the nozzle into its holster and goes to fetch Charlotte.</p><p>Charlotte holds her hand tightly – right up until the automatic doors of the little gas station ship slide closed behind them, and the air-conditioned cold air inside wraps itself around them. Then, with an excited shout, she tears her little hand away from Ava May’s and goes tearing off into the shop, making a beeline straight for the far side where Ava May can see a large rack of sweets on display. For a moment she’s tempted to follow after Charlotte, just to make sure that she’s alright and that nobody’s lurking for her in the corners of the store, but as her daughter’s head bobs up and down the aisles, Ava May very deliberately forces herself to relax.</p><p>It’s just a gas station. Just a gas station over five hours away from home, with only one single car outside. It’d be fine. She had to stop letting her fear get to her like this.</p><p>(And yet an insistent voice tells her that she’d already lost one Charlotte in a gas station much like this, and does she really want to lose her daughter as well? And so Ava May quickly grabs a couple of water bottles and an armful of snacks from the rack next to the door, and then joins up with Charlotte in front of the candy as quickly as possible.)</p><p>The sight that presents itself to her in front of the candy rack, however, has her grinding to a screeching halt as loudly as the squeaky-clean floor tiles of the gas station will allow her.</p><p>The candy rack is stocked much more sparsely than its lavish advertisements would lead to believe, with a good half of its racks holding only a single carton or bag to at least give the illusion of availability. The sweets on offer themselves appear to be almost as ancient as the gas station itself – there’s several brands on display there that Ava May hasn’t seen in years, and that observation distracts her for a brief second from the main source of her concern:</p><p>Standing next to Charlotte, just about her height and holding one of her hands each, are two children. That in and of itself is already enough to make Ava May suspicious – the car outside was a two-seater. The more she looks at the children, though, the more oddities crop up: they’re both wearing long socks and very short pants, their shirts are off-white and stark, buttoned-up to their chin, and they’re both wearing suspenders. There’s some strange, washed-out quality to the clothes, and the children themselves, too; Ava May doesn’t quite know how to describe it, but it looks to her almost as if there’s some sort of grainy filter over them – like one of the old photographs that were all grays and fading browns.</p><p>They’re all three of them turned away from Ava May, looking at the selection of candy on display and swaying slightly to the tinny music emanating from the speakers set up behind the shelves. The tune isn’t one Ava recognizes, but it’s reminiscent of the repetitively jovial music she always liked so much at the fairs her parents took her to – Ava May catches herself swaying slightly to the music too, and sucks in a sharp breath.</p><p>“Charlotte, love,” Ava May begins, and it’s like everything sort of <em>rights</em> itself in that moment: Charlotte turns around, smiling excitedly at her mother, the music fades away as quickly as it had come on, and the two children—</p><p>They’re gone.</p><p>Ava’s sure she didn’t so much as blink, but where previously there were three children there’s now only her daughter, looking at her curiously for a moment before turning back to the candy selection as she begins to point out the ones she’d like to get, please, mommy, can we get them all? It’s with great hesitation that Ava May moves closer to the candy shelves, and when she takes stock of the selection, she has to take another deep breath. It’s all—it’s all regular candy now, all of it, the usual colorful bags and boxes and nothing else than the brands Ava dutifully navigates past every time she takes Charlotte to go grocery shopping.</p><p>And when she whips her head around she sees that the gas station, too, is no longer the almost derelict-looking thing she drove up to only a few minutes earlier. It’s just a regular, if slightly run-down building with a bored-looking teenager all but falling asleep behind the register. The car outside is gone, too.</p><p>“Mom?”</p><p>Only when Charlotte insistently tugs at the hem of her shirt does Ava May finally turn back around to her.</p><p>She’s so rattled that she lets Charlotte get whatever she wants, and as she gathers her daughter and her daughter’s haul of sweets back up into the moving truck and drives away, Ava May can’t help one last look back.</p><p>And she is sure, for a moment, that she sees a red car pulling up into the gas station.</p><p> </p>
<h3>
  <strong>4 – A Hitchhiker</strong>
</h3><p>Three more hours on the road that’ll eventually lead them to their new home in Ashton, and Ava May is beginning to understand why her parents used to bring cans upon cans of brewed coffee along with them on their trips.</p><p>She sees the hitchhiker almost too late – the moving truck’s a heavy, wide-set thing that handles much like a brick on wheels, and by the time Ava May realizes that the figure on the side of the road drenched in the shadows of a nearby tree is a person rather than a particularly tall fencepost, she’s all but driven past her already. And normally that would’ve been that: no point in diving into the brakes and potentially causing an accident when Ava May knows that there will be more than enough cars passing down this highway for one of them to pick up the hitchhiker in her stead. No point, either, in delaying their journey by having to drop the hitchhiker off at some later point; and no point at all in putting herself and, more importantly, her daughter in danger by picking up someone who could be dangerous – it’s a harsh way to view the world, Ava May is well-aware, but she’s long since been clued in to the fact that not everything out there is going to be harmless.</p><p>So, yes: normally Ava May would have just driven past the hitchhiker and spared them not a single thought once they’d vanished in her rearview mirrors, but—</p><p>But because she had her head turned slightly at the time, to see how Charlotte was doing, Ava May got a good look at the hitchhiker even as they drove past the figure. And it could have been just a trick of the light, of course; a twist in the sun reflecting strangely off of the passenger side’s window, all only exacerbated by the speed at which Ava May was driving, but—but.</p><p>The hitchhiker had been a woman, that much Ava May was sure of. Short brown-red locks tousled up in the wind, and with eyes so pale that they had almost seemed blind; a sharp nose and a twist to her mouth that could have been either a snarl or a smile.</p><p>Ava May knows that face. No, <em>knew</em> it – she looks at Charlotte, with her own red hair, and then in the mirror, where similarly pale eyes, wide and disbelieving, blink back at Ava. A mix of the both of them, that face had been, and what was it her grandmother always used to say?</p><p>“It’s fitting that you named her Charlotte, Ava, because look at her! Only a toddler and she’s already got your sister’s hair.”</p><p>By the time Ava May thinks to check the sideview mirrors, of course, the hitchhiker is long gone.</p><p> </p>
<h3>
  <strong>5 – A Hitchhiker, again</strong>
</h3><p>It’s getting into late afternoon when Ava May sees the hitchhiker again. Or, rather – she quickly amends – she sees <em>a</em> hitchhiker on the side of the road, because it has been too many hours and too many miles between here and there for it to be the same hitchhiker she saw earlier.</p><p>But they’re wearing the same kind of neon-colored jacket, and their hair swishes in the wind just the same; most strikingly this hitchhiker isn’t carrying any sort of rucksack or bags with them, either. It’s just them, standing on the side of the road, one arm outstretched with their hand balled into a fist with only the thumb sticking up.</p><p>She’s pushing the brakes to full before she can think better of it, and as the truck screeches to a slow halt Ava May is suddenly immensely glad for the empty road. No cars behind her to make a fuss, and, most importantly, little Charlotte is fast asleep in the backseat and won’t be asking any questions – she’s too curious by far, sometimes. Ava May was just like her daughter at that age, but she does wonder sometimes how her own parents dealt with the incessant barrage of questions during her every waking hour.</p><p>As she hesitantly approaches the passenger door, Ava May is able to give the hitchhiker a good look-over, and on this second, closer examination the differences become more obvious: and the hair is similar enough, to be sure, tousled and curled but brown rather than red, and her eyes are green instead of the pale shade of blue that Ava and her sister used to share.</p><p>“Ava May,” Ava May introduces herself as she leans over to push open the passenger door, keeping her voice low still, “and in the back we have my daughter. She’s sleeping. It’s been a long day. Come on, let’s get you in.”</p><p>The hitchhiker nods quickly and, after a brief glance back into the dim seat at the back of the driver’s cabin, pulls an apologetic face. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, effortlessly matching Ava May’s level of being barely audible as she very carefully sits down and closes the door almost noiselessly behind her. She puts down something in the foot room in front of her, then finally turns to Ava May. “I didn’t know—I hope I didn’t wake her up.”</p><p>“If she’s not made any comment about me picking up somebody who’s now taking her spot next to me by now, I don’t think you’ve managed to wake her up after all,” Ava May mutters, shrugging. “I appreciate your consideration, though. Now. Where are you headed, stranger?” She gives that last word just a bit of emphasis, fingers ready to shift the gearstick back into plowing ahead but not yet going through with it – just hovering.</p><p>Silence stretches between them for a moment.</p><p>“Just—onward,” the hitchhiker finally tells her. She makes a gesture with her hand, fingers splayed, as she waves off her answer. “And it’s Charlotte. I’m Charlotte.”</p><p>Ava May almost gets whiplash from how quickly she whips her head around to stare at Charlotte the hitchhiker – who only blinks at her, wide-eyed, through eyes that seem just a bit paler than they were before. And as she gives her another once-over, several things slot into sharp focus, again almost as if something that had previously been askew in Ava May’s head has suddenly been righted: the hitchhiker’s hair is that indescribable shade of red again, and her eyes are as pale as they are in Ava May’s nightmares.</p><p>In a word: she looks exactly like her sister might have, if her sister had been given the chance to grow up.</p><p>Which is—a terrifying coincidence, to be sure. Ava May swallows down her sudden trepidation as best as she can, and croaks, “Are you.”</p><p>And Charlotte the hitchhiker, Charlotte who looks so much like her sister, that Charlotte only cocks her head to the side and smiles at her. There are too many teeth in that smile by far, and the way her head moves is unnaturally stiff, almost as if she wasn’t used to the motion – and her smile widens further still until it threatens to swallow up half her face.</p><p>“I am,” the thing says, voice a low hiss that still sounds so, so much like Charlotte that Ava May can’t help a shiver, “and would you believe me if I told you if that I never left?” The hitchhiker spreads her arms wide, wider than the small confines of the truck should be able to afford her. “This. The highway. Do you know what happens to people who get lost on the highway, Ava May? Who never return home?”</p><p>Her mouth is so dry. Her fingers are clamped around the steering wheel and she can’t move her foot away from the gas – she’s suddenly very glad that she’s not yet started the engine, because she’s not sure she’d be able to keep the truck on the road and not simply veer off into a ditch from the sheer shock of it all.</p><p>And the hitchhiker – this monstrous Charlotte – she lets out a high laugh. “They never leave, Ava May.”</p><p>And then there is another snap in the world—</p><p>And Ava May can move her foot, and uncurl her fingers, and she has to blink hard to keep the tears from spilling down her face. From behind she can hear the soft sounds of her daughter muttering in her sleep, and while she continues blinking against the tears, a car drives past where she’s still parked the truck on the sidestrip.</p><p>The seat next to her, when she braces herself and turns her head, is empty.</p><p>
  
</p>
<h3>
  <strong>6 – the Roadside Diner's Owner<br/>
</strong>
</h3><p>Ava May drives until she feels like her eyes are starting to burn from sheer exhaustion, and then she drives another hour still, to get as much road between Charlotte and—Charlotte. The other Charlotte.</p><p>A shiver slides down her back at the thought of—the thought of—at the mere possibility of what the hitchhiker had implied. Her sister had been dead for almost nine years now (and an insistent voice in the back of her head whispers that it’s been almost nine years to the day, isn’t that curious?) and on the good days, Ava doesn’t even think of her anymore. There’s nothing except her daughter’s name to remind her of her sister, these days, and even that’s become its own thing: Charlotte her daughter is Charlotte, and her sister <em>was</em> Charlotte, but isn’t any longer.</p><p>Because she died.</p><p>(Because she died only a few days before her Charlotte’s birth, and isn’t that, too, curious? Ava May has never consciously thought about it, but now she <em>can’t stop</em> the winding thoughts filling up the space behind her eyes like a terrible mindworm.)</p><p>A quick glance back over her shoulder reassures her that Charlotte is still sleeping soundly, and at the sight of her daughter snuggled up into a tight little ball the storm in her head quietens just the tiniest bit.</p><p>Perhaps she had imagined the resemblance, after all. (But she had not imagined the name, and neither had she imagined the impossible teeth, and she’d drunk enough stale coffee to remember every detail of their conversation with clarity. The edge of the parcel still tucked away under the passenger seat burns in the corners of her eyes.)</p><p>Her head is filled with the old ringing of police sirens and church bells when, off in the distance, Ava May sees the bright lights of a rest stop cutting through the night.</p><p>Charlotte spots it moments later, and soon enough the truck is filled with her begging to make a stop and get something to eat, and some ice cream while they’re at it, too, and do you think, Mommy, that they have soda there and that she could have some?</p><p>Exhaustion ways too heavily on Ava May to refuse her daughter, especially with both of their stomachs growling and Ava May herself in dire need of at least another two cups of coffee. She slows the truck down as they approach the rest stop, and now she can begin to make out the details of the diner located there: it’s an old-looking thing, almost like out of a movie, with a huge neon sign advertising the menu of the day – pecan pie, and what else was she expecting, really – and painted in that weirdly-brown orange color that seemed so prevalent everywhere when Ava May herself had been a kid.</p><p>There’s no other cars or even long-distance trucks parked in front of the diner, only a single motorcycle, but Ava May supposes that it comes down to the late hour and decides to count it as a blessing. At least neither she or Charlotte will be disturbing anyone if they decide to take a bit longer to eat and get their bearing again after that experience with—</p><p>The hitchhiker.</p><p>She’s gone by so fast that Ava May almost thinks that she must’ve imagined her standing off to the side of the little ramp leading away from the main highway and up to the reststop, but when she warily checks the side mirrors – yes, there she is. And almost as if she knows that Ava May is watching her, now, she raises an arm, waves—</p><p>And vanishes between one blink and the next.</p><p>It takes all of Ava’s self-control not to jump hard into the brakes as she startles, but thankfully she’s driving so slow already that it’s easy enough to simply pull up into the first parking spot that comes up – and when, engine still rumbling, she checks the mirrors again, the hitchhiker remains gone.</p><p>She still all but carries Charlotte across the parking lot and into the diner, so desperate is Ava May to put as much distance between the two of them and the spot where the hitchhiker had once again disappeared.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Chicken and biscuits for both, a coffee for Ava May and a soda for Charlotte, and a piece of pecan pie each – Ava May’s never put much stock into the people complaining that they’re so full that they can’t even breathe, but she very much feels like that now. Charlotte, too, has quieted down considerably now that she has two whole plates’ worth of food in her. Small blessings.</p><p>While Ava May is still deliberating how to proceed – was it safe to continue to Ashton at all, with a potentially ghostly hitchhiker on their trail? was it safe to continue driving in the first place, if Ava May beginning to imagine strange hitchhikers from out of thing air? – the owner sidles up, bearing a tray with two glasses of coke pearling with moisture.</p><p>“For the both of you,” she says, smiling at Charlotte. Then, turning to Ava May, she adds, “My treat. The both of you look like you’ve had a long trip behind you – and a longer one ahead of you, am I right?”</p><p>Ava May can only nod. Then, remembering propriety, she croaks out, “Thank you. I—Thank you, genuinely. It’s appreciated.”</p><p>The owner gives her another bright smile and makes to turn around—</p><p>“Say, do you know anything about strange hitchhikers in these parts? Anyone to keep an eye out for?”</p><p>The owner doesn’t even turn back, but Ava May can well see how her shoulders stiffen ever so slightly when she mentions the hitchhiker. “No. I can’t say I have.”</p><p>Ava May clinks her glass of soda against Charlotte’s, and continues losing herself in her thoughts.</p><p>
  
</p>
<h3>
  <strong>7 – The Lady in the Bathroom of That Same Roadside Diner</strong>
</h3><p>“You stay here, alright love? I need to go to the restroom.” With another cautioning look at Charlotte – sitting innocently at the table, but Ava May has raised her for nine years and she knows full well that her daughter is going to go off exploring the moment she turns her back on her, if she doesn’t remind her not to – Ava May stands up from the table and follows the small, hand-drawn signs to the restroom at the back of the diner.</p><p>The door is a flimsy thing and Ava May pushes it open with a rusted little creak—</p><p>And almost barrels into the woman already occupying the small bit of space between the stalls and the sink.</p><p>The light inside the restroom isn’t the greatest: there’s only a single light bulb screwed up high into the gray-tiled ceiling, and it must be very dirty indeed, for only small slivers of light reach down to the room below. There’s a wide window at ceiling height on the far side of the room, but none of the streetlamps situated around the diner were on that side of the diner, it seemed, and the window was as dark as anything.</p><p>For a moment Ava May thinks it’s the hitchhiker standing there, wild hair and cold, cold eyes—</p><p>But then she fully registers her surroundings, and the woman is only a woman.</p><p>“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, darling,” that woman still standing half in front of the tiny restroom mirror now says, sounding half-curious, half-apprehensive – and Ava May can’t fault her for it. If the brief glance she can catch of herself in that mirror is any indication, she looks terrible; dark smudges under her eyes doing nothing to soften the wide-eyed, exhausted expression on her face. She’d be scared of seeing herself like this, to be sure.</p><p>“I thought I did,” Ava May replies after a moment. She does her best to make it sound light and friendly, because she’s just as aware as the woman presumably is of the fact that it is approaching midnight and they are in a bathroom in a little diner right out on the edge of nowhere. Ava could be anyone. The woman could be anyone. “The light made you look like someone else there, for a moment. I’m sorry if I startled you – the surprise was mutual! I can wait outside, if you’d like.”</p><p>The woman visibly relaxes at that, and Ava, too, breathes a bit easier. It takes another long few seconds before the woman says, “No, love, you’re fine. I was just leaving anyway; I’m sure you’d appreciate the chance to freshen up without having someone in the room.”</p><p>She’s pushed past Ava May and through the shoddy door before Ava can so much as get a word in edgewise, leaving her standing in the dimly-lit restroom with its bare lightbulb and stark-white walls. Ava May blinks.</p><p>Then, very slowly, exhaustion coming to bear on her with all its weight, she moves towards the sink—</p><p>The door is opened again, and it’s only thanks to Ava May having moved far enough away from it already that she’s not hit by the wide swing of its arch. It’s the same woman again, but this time instead of immediately pushing past Ava May to grab whatever it is she must’ve forgotten, the woman instead takes a very deliberate step to the side to the clear the way to the door.</p><p>It slowly swings shut, creaking, and in the silence that follows it thudding into its frame Ava May suddenly finds herself very aware of the fact that she’s left Charlotte still sitting at their table.</p><p>“Listen,” the woman starts before Ava May can so much as gather her thoughts, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Rose. The owner,” she quickly adds, seeing Ava May’s confusion, “you asked her about any hitchhikers in these parts. I—don’t want to overstep any bounds here, but I do have to ask: did you pick up a strange hitchhiker along the way, here?”</p><p>Ava May’s startled expression is answer enough, for the woman lets out a deep sigh.</p><p>“I thought so. You aren’t the first, you know. That hitchhiker—strange creature. Shows up for some people, not for others. Did you pick them up?”</p><p>“I did,” Ava May whispers. And then, before she can think better of it, “I did. She looked like my dead sister.”</p><p>And to her complete and utter disbelief, the woman smiles.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“The bike out front’s mine, you know. I used to drive a real nice two-seater of a car, but, well. Learned quick enough that if you have an empty seat . . . “ the woman trails off, looking over to where Charlotte is currently helping Rose, the diner owner, sort through some magazines.</p><p>They’re back at the table, where the two glasses of soda still sit, half-drunken. Ava May is clutching hers with a ferocity that threatens to shatter the glass as she listens to what the woman – Vanessa, she introduced herself as they’d left the bathroom behind in order to properly continue their conversation – has to say.</p><p>“What about having an empty seat?” Ava May now asks. Still trying to delude herself into believing that she doesn’t already know the answer in her bones.</p><p>Vanessa gives her an almost pitying look. “Well, an empty seat’s just begging to be filled, isn’t it?”</p><p>“And your bike only fits a single rider.”</p><p>“Bought it specifically because of that,” Vanessa agrees, nodding along to her own words. “I encountered the hitchhiker a few months after my mother died. The two of us, we used to drive down this way to get to the coast – she loved the ocean, did mom. Loved going real fast in that car, too, you should’ve seen her! That woman was a menace behind the wheel for as long as she still allowed herself to take the driver’s seat.</p><p>“After she died, I couldn’t get in that car for months. It—hurt. You know what I mean.”</p><p>“I believe so, yes.”</p><p>“I thought so. You have that look about you, and the hitchhiker . . . well, the seat they’re occupying has to be completely empty, you know? You know.”</p><p>And Ava May did, indeed, know.</p><p>They sit in silence for a moment, each of them caught up with their own thoughts.</p><p>Eventually, swallowing hard, Ava dares to ask the thought that’s been constantly circling around in her mind: “What happens if you don’t pick them up? And if you do take them along, what happens if the hitchhiker . . . leaves something behind?”</p><p>Vanessa considers her for a good long moment. “You always pick them up, eventually. An unwritten rule of the whole thing, I think. Can’t not pick them up if they’re standing at every new mile marker, can you—well, I suppose you can, but they make sure that you stop for them. Eventually.”</p><p>A raised eyebrow.</p><p>“Oh, a blown tire, or an accident up ahead, and by the time you notice that you’ve stopped completely they’re already tapping on your window and trying the door of your car.” A shudder wracks Vanessa. “Which is why—the bike. There’s not seat there for them to take, and no window to tap against, and, well, the last time I saw that hitchhiker was on the drive down to the coast to sell that damned car.”</p><p>“Lots of people with stories like Vanessa’s, here,” a gentle voice says.</p><p>Ava drags her eyes away from Vanessa and there’s Rose, the diner’s owner, standing next to the table. Charlotte’s holding her hand, smiling happily if tiredly at Ava May.</p><p>She swallows. “You too? Is that why you lied, earlier?”</p><p>Rose frowns, then shrugs. “We all do what we have to, out here. Vanessa drives without another available seat. The pilot only looking to have a peaceful time on his semi-annual vacation at his cabin in the woods now packs his car so full of friends that there’s not a single bit of seat that isn’t occupied. And me, well . . .” She sighs, and gently directs Charlotte to sit down on the bench next to her mother before she settles herself down beside Vanessa. “My house is within walking distance these days, you see.”</p><p>“I’ve not heard of the hitchhiker leaving anything behind in the car, though,” Vanessa says. She’s got her hands steepled in front of her chin, and is looking at Ava May with a warm, gentle intensity. “What did they leave behind for you, then?”</p><p>Just then Charlotte complains that she has to go to the restroom, and, after a nod from Rose, Ava May lets her go with only a brief reminder to wash her hands and come back immediately. Only when her daughter has let the restroom door fall shut behind her does Ava finally turn back to face Vanessa and Rose.</p><p>“A small parcel. About this large,” and Ava indicates a shape a little larger than both of her hands together, “wrapped in brown paper and tied up with a string. She left it where she was sitting when she . . . well, when she vanished. Does she usually do that, as well? Just disappear?”</p><p>To her great relief – and what an absurd word to use, in a situation like this – the other two women slowly begin to nod at her.</p><p>“Usually vanishes once we get close to the nearest city, when I was still having to pick them up,” Vanessa tells her, and Rose adds, “There doesn’t seem to be a physical distance to it, mind you. Some people who’ve talked to me about it told me that they drove with them for hours, while for others the hitchhiker vanished almost immediately. It seems to be tied not to actual distance travelled but—how did that married couple put it? Once you reach your destination, the hitchhiker leaves.”</p><p>“Our destination is Ashton, though.”</p><p>“Ashton?” Vanessa asks, resting her chin on her hands and glancing sidelong at Rose.</p><p>“Far away, I take it?” Rose asks.</p><p>Ava May shrugs. “Only a couple hundred more miles. Charlotte and I have been at it for the whole day, at this point.” She pauses. “The hitchhiker vanished all but mid-conversation, though.”</p><p>The three of them consider that, for a moment.</p><p>Then, Rose, “It might have been the package she left you, you know.”</p><p>And Vanessa, “It could well be. Maybe whatever’s inside the package is related to your destination. You said the hitchhiker appeared to you in the form of your dead sister? Maybe there’s—”</p><p>“There’s no more soap in the restroom, Miss Rose!” Charlotte comes running towards them with her hands still visibly dripping, a cheerful smile on her face as she deliberately splatters the floor in front of the table with suds of what must have been the last remnants of the soap. “I got my hands super clean though, mommy!”</p><p>“Good on you, love!” Ava May glances across the table at the other two, and sees the both of them smiling at her daughter even as proceeds to wipe her hands dry on her pants. “Now, come sit down. I still have to talk over some things with Miss Vanessa and Miss Rose, here.”</p><p>“There’s not much else I can tell you, honestly,” Vanessa speaks up while Charlotte is just starting to get settled down again. “Honestly, darling, I think your best bet is to just continue driving, ignore the package, and pray real hard that you don’t see that hitchhiker waiting for you again. If they decide that they want to continue journeying with you . . .”</p><p>“Then I suppose there’s not much I can do about it. You’re right, of course.” Ava May sighs and now, only now, does she finally relinquish her death grip on her glass to down its remaining contents. When she finally sets it back down with a hard thunk, there’s hard determination filling her stomach just as much as the drink is. “We’ll just have to see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed for us, won’t you?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Charlotte’s packed back into the passenger seat, happily chattering on about how nice Miss Rose was – Ava May got another good look at the package, still sitting snuggly in the boot of the passenger seat – and Ava May herself is feeling more confident than she has since she first left her old home behind today.</p><p>It’s not that she thinks that she’ll be able to contend with the hitchhiker, should they – she, Charlotte, of course it would have been Charlotte for her – show up again. But after her conversation with Vanessa and Rose, Ava May is confident that, should that thing wearing the shape of her sister appear on the side of the road again, she will be able to do what she needs to.</p><p>For herself, and for Charlotte. Both of them.</p><p>
  
</p>
<h3>
  <strong>Again, Again - Third Time’s the Charm</strong>
</h3><p>The roadside sign informs her that it’s only 230 more miles to go until they’ve finally reached Ashton. Charlotte’s awake, reading her comics; Ava May is two coffees deep again already and watching the street in general and the roadside shrubbery in particular with the sort of attention that only comes borne of bone-deep apprehension. Despite her best efforts to the contrary Charlotte seems to have picked up on it, too; every few minutes she will tear her eyes away from her book and glance first outside, then to her mother, and then back again.</p><p>Charlotte’s not said anything about it yet, though, and neither has she remarked on the hitchhiker’s little parcel that still remains in the space beneath her dangling feet. Given the circumstances, Ava’s not even sure if Charlotte can see it at all -- ´between vanishing hitchhikers that look and act like her dead sister and strange monochrome children vanishing in front of candy shelves an invisible parcel wouldn’t be the oddest thing Ava May’s encountered today.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They drive steadily into the night and towards the morning, the headlights of the truck illuminating the road in front of them with all the force of a dust-riddled sun. There’s something strangely soothing about watching the road just stretch on endlessly, streetlights occasionally cutting through the darkness in small cones of light. The countryside they’re passing is getting more rural still, if that’s even possible; patches of farmland and fields interspersed by wide swathes of wild forests. Grass lines the side of the road more often than not, and a handful of signs have already warned Ava May of the danger of deer.</p><p>“Charlotte,” Ava May begins as they pass a field of sleeping cows, not quite sure where she’s even going with this until the words are already stumbling out of her mouth, “do you remember how I told you that you’re named for my sister?”</p><p>“Your sister Charlotte? Yeah, I remember,” her daughter Charlotte replies, looking up from her comic book. She must’ve read through the whole thing three times over the course of the drive by now. “She had hair like mine!”</p><p>“That she did,” Ava May agrees fondly. “Now, listen. I told you that you’re named for my sister, but I never told you what happened to my sister – you know how some of the children in your old school had aunts?”</p><p>“Yeah, like Michael’s Aunt Eva?”</p><p>“Right. And you once asked me why you didn’t have an Aunt Charlotte.” The memory sombers her up ever so slightly – it had been a bad week and a bad day in a bad month, and Charlotte’s question about her missing aunt hadn’t helped. Ava May had given her some bogus answer and Charlotte had taken it at face value, or at least she hadn’t continued asking, and that had been enough for Ava May at the moment. Now, though—now is not a good day either, or a good month, but their move to Ashton is going to be the start of something good if Ava May has anything to say about it. And now, therefore, she takes a deep breath and says, “The reason you don’t have an Aunt Charlotte is because Aunt Charlotte died when the both of us were just a few years older than you. We were on a road trip just like ours, and—and.”</p><p>She swallows hard. Even now the memory still hurts.</p><p>“She was taken by someone, and we never found her.”</p><p>The detectives assigned to the case had told them that it happened, sometimes, as terrible as that was – highways were prime abduction spots, and now their daughter, sister, had fallen victim to that. Ava May’s parents had wailed and they had cried and, months and months later, they had come to accept what had happened.</p><p>Ava May had pretended to accept her sister’s disappearance, too. It was easier that way. People asked you less questions when they thought you were no longer having problems, and what Ava wanted, more than anything in the year following her sister’s abduction, was silence.</p><p>The silence came, eventually. But Ava May had dropped out of school and taken to hitchhiking by then, travelling the highway where her sister had been abducted up and down and back up again. She met—she met all kinds of people on that stretch of highway. Good people, mostly; kind people who understood why she was travelling and helped her on her way down the road. Strange people, too, the kind you remembered even years afterwards.</p><p>Eventually, she met the man who would become her husband. He was hitchhiking for his own reasons – and never did tell her what those were, until, eventually, Ava May stopped asking – and the two of them spent first a handful of months travelling together, then they stayed in one place together, and then, almost naturally, did they end up creating a place of their own. Together.</p><p>Only then did Ava May truly begin her path to acceptance.</p><p>“And when we knew that you were on the way, my love, what else could we name you but after Charlotte? In a way, after all, my sister had brought you into our lives.”</p><p>They never did find her sister.</p><p>And, with the birth of her daughter, Ava May stopped looking.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ava May tells her daughter as many stories about her sister as she can remember – her husband had always protested, when she’d previously tried to do so, but there’s a reason there’s only the two of them in the truck right now. So now she tells Charlotte about the time her sister had kidnapped a duck from the pond close to their home because she thought it looked lonely, and how the both of them had tried to create a nest for it in the corner of the attic for three days before their father found out and they were forced to release the, by now indignant, animal. How Ava May had come running to her sister, once, with bruised knees and bleeding palms, and her sister had run to the bathroom to grab the medkit to get her all fixed up before their parents were home. How the two of them had used to wile away the summer evenings at the local lake to try and fish, and how they never did end up catching anything but it didn’t matter because that wasn’t the point – the point was that they were together, and having fun together, and Ava May cherished those late evenings like nothing else.</p><p>Now that she’s started talking, she can’t bring herself to stop; the stories just continue to tumble from her lips and the more she tells Charlotte, the lighter she feels—</p><p>And then the headlights illuminate a figure standing far, far down the road. Hair that sways in the wind, and eyes so, so pale that Ava May swears she can see them cut even through the darkness ahead.</p><p>There is no question about who it is. There is no question about what to do, either.</p><p>Ava May pulls over with such precision that the passenger window comes to a stop in front of the hitchhiker perfectly.</p><p>She looks exactly like an older version of her sister Charlotte, now, but again the limbs are too long and the teeth she reveals as she smiles at the both of them are too sharp and glinting too much for the little light that illuminates them. The hitchhiker stands taller than the truck when Ava May turns off the engine, but when she looks over at her again, her unnaturally sharp face is perfectly lined up with the height of the passenger window.</p><p>The lights from inside briefly illuminate too-large eyes and a non-existent nose. Then the figure shifts – she looks more like Charlotte, now, but in the same way that a preserved and stuffed coyote looks like the real, live animal.  Haggard and drawn and subtly, ever-so slightly off-kilter.</p><p>Ava May swallows. She reaches out to her daughter and, with great deliberation, lays a hand on her shoulder.</p><p>Just as she gives her daughter a gentle squeeze the hitchhiker slowly, almost hesitantly raises a hand of her own and taps at the window. Claws scrape across the glass, a high screech that rings through Ava May’s head even after the hitchhiker rests her palm against the glass instead.</p><p>And before Ava May can stop her, Charlotte raises her own small hand and taps back.</p><p>And <em>tap</em>—</p><p>The hitchhiker’s teeth blunten.</p><p><em>Tap</em>—</p><p>Her eyes grow smaller, until they’re human-sized.</p><p><em>Tap</em>—</p><p>The unearthly quality to her features smoothes out, and the hand she still has pressed to the glass no longer bears sharp-talons.</p><p><em>Tap</em>.</p><p>The hitchhiker smiles again. Charlotte smiles back.</p><p>The hitchhiker points at the parcel still lying under the front seat, and then, when neither Ava May nor Charlotte make any movement at all, she gestures more animatedly at them to take it. And before Ava May can even think to give voice to a warning, Charlotte is already shaking off Ava May’s hand and reaching down and wrapping her little fingers around it – the paper crinkles and crumples, and whatever is inside is heavy enough that Charlotte has to grab it with both hands to lift it.</p><p>She holds it in her lap for a moment, and then, Ava May watching, paralyzed with indecision, Charlotte begins to unwrap the parcel.</p><p>It’s an old photograph in an even older frame.</p><p>It’s an old photograph <em>because why would it be anything else</em>, and on it: two young girls, only a bare handful of years older than Charlotte now. One of them has unruly, eternally wind-swept hair, the other eyes as pale as winter. They’re both sitting in the back of a car, and the picture appears to be taken from someone sitting in the passenger seat; there’s only sparse, faded brown-reddish colors but the sheer vibrancy of the dresses both girls are wearing comes across without any trouble.</p><p>They’re smiling.</p><p>Of course they would be.</p><p>Ava May begins tearing up at the sight of her and her sister before she can even begin to process how exactly this photograph got here, she’d only had the one copy and it had been lost in the fire, it surely had, just like everything else – and then Charlotte is saying something, repeating it, and Ava May finally comes back enough to herself to hear her say, “—the back! There’s something written on the back, mommy!”</p><p>It’s with trembling hands that Ava May reaches out and takes the picture from her daughter. She stares at it for a moment longer – there’s the stuffed elephant strapped into the seat between her and her sister, yes, because they’d always made sure he was as protected from accidents as the rest of them – then, hands shaking so hard that she almost drops it, she turns the frame over.</p><p>There’s only a handful of words on the back. Written in a scrawling, unsteady hand, almost like something her daughter would write. Ava May blinks rapidly to clear her eyes, and reads:</p><p>
  <em>In loving memory, dearest sister. All the best for your new life in Ashton.</em>
</p><p>The tears run freely, then.</p><p>And when Ava May at long last chokes down the last of her sobs and rubs at her eyes and looks out the window again, the hitchhiker has, as always, vanished.</p>
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